COLORADO
The city of Grand Junction just loves controversy, or so you would think from reading the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. First, there was the flap over a high school student who refused to sing an Urdu song because its lyrics translated into an Islamic hymn; then there were the members of the Lions Club, who dressed up as suicide-terrorists for their annual parade through town, complete with white robes, dark glasses and necklaces made of bombs. One phony jihadist sported red cylinders resembling dynamite dangling from a cord around his neck; another wore a box on his chest labeled C-4 explosive, plus an attached cell phone to represent a triggering device. Hundreds of spectators watched and laughed as club members pretended to demonstrate against the fence around the local airport: Trust us, you dont need a fence, said one placard.
But after the marchers dumped their costumes in a trash can near a bar, somebody picked up the C-4 dynamite-labeled box and put it in front of a door to the Rio Grande Federal Credit Union. That really got folks hopping. A passerby called police, whose explosive experts proceeded to detonate the bomb, and the airport called the FBI because police told them that Arab protesters were verbally attacking the airport fence.
Not surprisingly, in the Sentinels always lively You Said It column, readers expressed outrage at the Lions Clubs poor judgment. Other commenters were distressed because so many people sided with the student who couldnt bring himself to sing a Muslim song, with one concluding sadly that there really isnt too much difference between a Christian extremist and a Muslim extremist.
Oh, well, at least the Lions Club, which aims to raise money for worthy community causes, tries mightily to have a good time. In previous years, members have paraded in drag as nuns, which didnt go over well with St. Marys Hospital, and during the Enron scandal, members dressed in barrels with fake derrieres, holding up signs saying they lost their rears when Enron collapsed.
MONTANA
If the residents of Browning, Mont., a town of 1,000 close to Canada, ever need to brag, they can always boast about how their weather goes to extremes. Back in 1916, on Feb. 23, for example, the temperature dropped 100 degrees in a day a record plummeting from 44 degrees Fahrenheit to minus 56 degrees Fahrenheit.
Perhaps because freezing cold, blowing snow and fierce winds are hardly news to the locals, no one seemed too surprised recently when 65 mph gusts pushed a school bus with 11 students aboard right off the road and into a fence, where it remained upright. Good driver! commented Ron Boyd to KTVQ.com. Didnt try to steer it back on the road and roll (over). Just rode it down to the fence.
But highly skilled school bus drivers are the norm in rural Montana, says Roundup resident Wendy Beye, who has spent years following her children and now grandchildren to basketball and volleyball games that are long hours of driving time away. Winter weather is almost always bad, she says, as the kids leave early in the morning in steamy-windowed buses; yet accidents are rare because bus drivers have learned how to drive safely in rotten weather. Somehow, she says, all of us almost always arrive intact.
OREGON
Three peregrine falcons named Judah, Carbon and Zinc are the go-to birds for a Portland garbage station when it wants to discourage pesky seagulls that scatter food scraps and foul nearby roofs and cars with their droppings. The raptors dont have to attack the gulls to haze them away, reports The Oregonian; all they need to do is fly around and look like a scary falcon. The gulls quickly get the message that theyre in danger and move on, though a transfer-station manager in Tillamook has found that the falcons need to be brought by frequently to keep the seagulls from returning.
Although the falcons seldom attack the gulls, which are formidable birds twice their size, sometimes the temptation proves irresistible, says reporter Eric Mortenson, who witnessed one astonishing encounter: Streaking from a building fan tower, with screaming gulls peeling away in terror left and right, Judah selected a target and delivered a mid-air whack job. Falconer Kort Clayton, who was clearly startled, called that attack atypical behavior, for which Judah earned a time out in his wire cage. Meanwhile, the gull Judah nailed was a goner.
Betsy Marston is the editor of Writers on the Range, an op ed service of High Country News (hcn.org). Tips of Western oddities are always appreciated, betsym@hcn.org.